The Divine Servant
THE DIVINE SERVANT
“Behold, My servant whom I have chosen;
My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased:
I will put My spirit upon Him,
And He shall declare judgement to the Gentiles.
He shall not strive, nor cry aloud;
Neither shall any one hear His voice in the streets.
A bruised reed shall He not break,
And smoking flax shall He not quench,
Till He send forth judgement unto victory.
And in His Name shall the Gentiles hope.”
—S. Matt. 12:18–21.
The quotation is from the forty-second chapter of Isaiah. In that prophecy the passage marks a distinct stage. The burden of the prophet up to that point had been the aloneness of God and the unique character of His people. He is the Lord, and there is none beside Him. All nations are under His sovereign rule. The falseness and folly of idolatry have been mercilessly exposed, and Jehovah’s power over all peoples so fully demonstrated as to destroy Israel’s hope in her alliance with foreign nations. He is their defence and their hope. He has chosen Israel for His own. In the second portion of the prophecy Jehovah reveals the purpose of Israel’s call in His larger purpose for the world. He unfolds a missionary programme for the deliverance and restoration not of Israel only, but of all. The God in whom there is everlasting strength will come to the deliverance of the captive, and to the help of the poor and needy. Darkness shall disappear at His coming; He will open rivers upon bare heights, and fountains in the midst of valleys; the wilderness shall become a pool, and in the dry land shall be springs of water; the desert shall become a fruitful field, and the wilderness rejoice and blossom as a rose. All the nations of the earth He will lead forth unto light and liberty, righteousness and peace shall be established, and love and laughter, prayer and song, shall fill the land.
This glorious programme is identified throughout with One who is named the Lord’s Servant. This Servant is commissioned to carry out the Divine purpose. The description of His service and sufferings extends to the end of the prophecy, and is the most precious portion of the Old Testament Scriptures. This Servant of the Old Testament is the Christ of the New. He lived in the consciousness that He was the Servant of the Lord, recognised the obligation, gloried in the Name; and here the prophet’s description is directly applied to Him.
The passage is quoted in explanation of Christ’s withdrawal from the scene of contention to a place of seclusion, and of His injunction of silence upon those He healed. He had come into open conflict with the Pharisees on the question of the Sabbath. Their religious susceptibilities were outraged by His irreligious ways. He defied traditional authority, and ignored the restrictions of conventional piety. He kept company with disreputable people who plucked ears of corn on the Sabbath day. They challenged His loyalty to the Sabbath. He tore their plea for pious observance to tatters, and backed His argument by a work of healing in the Holy Temple itself on the sacred day. The Pharisees were silenced but not convinced. To be worsted in argument leads to chagrin and hate rather than to conviction. “They went out, and took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him. And Jesus perceiving it withdrew from thence.” He would not stay to foment strife, and retired in the hope that elsewhere He might quietly pursue His ministry of instruction and mercy. But He could not be hid. “Many followed Him and He healed them all, and charged them that they should not make Him known.” Everywhere His appearance brought together great crowds, and was the signal for tumult and excitement. These things were inevitable, but He never sought them. He shrank from sensational notoriety, and strove to avoid conflict and uproar. In this, says the Evangelist, He realised the prophetic ideal of the Servant of the Lord, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the Prophet, saying: “Behold My Servant.”
I. The Divine Servant and His Lord
The very title arrests us, and the paradox of a Divine Servant and His Lord seems to be a contradiction of terms. What is a servant? We have almost forgotten what the word implied in the days of Christ, when service was so largely identified with bondage; but even yet the root significance remains unchanged. A servant is a person who is at the disposal of another. It may be a voluntary or a compulsory service, but so long as a man is a servant he exists to do the will of his master, to carry out his plans, and represent his interests. He has no separate will, no separate interests, no separate programme. While he is a servant, he is another’s possession. All that he has of brain and muscle, nerve and heart, is laid at the disposal of another’s will. He receives his commands and obeys them. They may not commend themselves to his judgement, he may not like the work assigned to him, he may think there is a better way of doing it, but he cannot pick and choose either the work to be done or the time and manner of doing it. His one and only business is to carry out his master’s will; to refuse obedience means to quit his service.
This title is given to Jesus. He does not repudiate it, but welcomes it with all its obligations, and glories in its opportunities. There is no sense of antagonism in the Son being a Servant, and the equal being subordinate. “I and the Father are one.” “I am in the midst of you as He that serveth.” His first recorded speech combines the twofold relationship in the one person: “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” The Son of God and the Servant of the Lord! He came from His baptism, where the Father had witnessed to His Sonship, and opened His commission with Isaiah’s words concerning the Servant:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor;
He hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised.
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
The urgency of a great mission was upon Him when He said, “We must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is yet day: the night cometh when no man can work.” The consciousness of it never left Him. He always claimed to be the Sent of God, and He lived to do not His own will but the will of the Father who sent Him. He gloried both in the title and the service. “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” In the same night in which He was betrayed, He took a towel and girded Himself and washed the feet of His disciples, setting them an example of lowly service. It is a great mystery but a glorious fact: One with God and yet His Servant. He had shared the Father’s glory before the world was, He was in the beginning with God, and was Himself God, but He came as a Servant in all things obedient to the Father’s will.
In all His life of ministry, Jesus Christ, as the Servant of the Lord, was fully assured of three things:—
1. That He was chosen of God; “Behold My Servant whom I have chosen.”
2. That He dwelt deep in the love of the Father; “My beloved.”
3. That in all things He had the approval of God; “In whom I am well pleased.” Chosen: Beloved: Approved.
Chosen. These great certainties were the sheet anchor of His soul and the secret of His strength. Who can measure the strength He found in the assurance of His Divine commission? He was the Sent of God. That is the conviction that inspires and sustains for heroic service. The voice of God in the soul creates the fiery prophet and transforms commonplace men and women into the valiant of the Lord. The called are invested with the glory and entrusted with the power of the one who calls. The servant of the state finds his personality identified with the glory of the empire he represents. He is clothed with its strength and ennobled by its glory. He speaks for the state, stands for the state, and commands the resources of the state. Of himself he would count for little, but as the sent of an empire he becomes the embodiment of an empire. If a state commission works such wonders in a man, what must a Divine commission be? Sent of God, ordained of the Most High, commissioned of Heaven, the Servant of the Lord is identified with the Almighty, clothed with the glory of the Eternal, sustained by all the resources of the Infinite.
Through all the chequered course of His ministry this conviction never faltered; the Father had chosen and sent Him, the words He spake were the words of His Father, the works He did were not His own. He did all things by the authority of God. In this He is our Exemplar. As He was the chosen Servant of Jehovah, so also are His own servants chosen and sent. “Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you.” As He was chosen of God, so we are chosen and appointed of Him. “As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you.” He chooses His servants; that prerogative He has never relegated to Pope, Prelate, or Presbyter. The right is His own. The call of man is a poor substitute for the call of God. Chosen, called, sent of God; with that conviction in his soul, a man becomes strong in the strength of Eternal Might. Even Calvary was possible to the chosen Servant of Jehovah.
“Beloved.” All through His life Jesus was fully assured of the Father’s love. How often He falls back upon that assurance! “The Father loveth the Son.” “Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” “I have kept My Father’s commandment and abide in His love.” To know the love of the Father is to know the love that passeth knowledge, and to reveal it unto men was the supreme glory of His beloved Son. Twice the Father openly declared His love, but what was twice openly declared, was constantly assured. He came from the bosom of the Father, and knew that the heart of the Father never changed. However terrible His lot, however hard His task, however disappointing His toil, however deep His humiliation, however faithless His friends or bitter His enemies, He never doubted that God loved Him. The fiercest temptation and the darkest Gethsemane failed to disturb His confidence in the Father’s love. A child of my acquaintance said one day, “I am glad God loves me.” “Yes,” said the mother, “and are you not glad you love Him?” “Yes,” replied the child, “but I am not so sure about that.” I do not think the child understood the significance of its words, but out of the mouths of babes God still perfects praise. Our love may fluctuate, be confused with our feelings, be influenced by a thousand forces we cannot understand, till we are not quite sure about it. But we can always be sure of the love of God, and it is the love we trust that saves. Because it is so precious it is always the centre of attack. The Devil is always seeking to cast doubt upon the Father’s love. “If Thou art the Son of God.” Why? Every man can supply Satan’s suggestion from his own experience. Why hunger? Why persecution? Why hardship? Why affliction? Why loss? Jesus never swerved from His unquestioning faith in the love of the Father. It is the one thing we can be sure of, and is the one thing of which we need most to be assured. The Father loves, the child can trust.
Approved. “In whom My soul is well pleased.” Twice God openly spoke His approval. At the beginning of His ministry He presented Himself in baptism, and God spoke out of the Heavens: “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” At the close of His ministry He presented Himself as the Sacrificial Lamb in the Holy Mount, and again God spake: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” The approval thus openly avowed was constantly assured to the consciousness of the Son. Everybody else disapproved. At one stage or other of His work everybody lost faith in Him. His relatives doubted His sanity, and His enemies said He was possessed of a devil, the Church denounced Him, the State condemned Him, the multitude mocked Him, His disciples forsook Him, and an Apostle betrayed Him. He trod the winepress alone, but God was with Him. There was no controversy between the Servant and His Lord. God, who had chosen Him, trusted and approved. That is the faith that sustains. He could say, “He that sent Me is with Me; He hath not left Me alone; for I do always the things that are pleasing to Him.” He stood fully assured in all the will of God. He knew that all His life was approved of the Father. With that assurance the elect stand unmoved; though solitary, invincible; though beset on every side, true to God whether men praise or blame.
These are the three great certainties of all true servants of Jehovah. Chosen of God, beloved of God, approved of God. In all these things the servant of Christ is as his Lord; chosen as He was chosen, beloved as He was beloved, approved as He was approved. At the back of all true service for man there must be the realised purpose of God, and pervading all humanitarian activities there must be a Divine compassion. Service without God lacks foundation, inspiration, and permanence; it is cut off from the only source that can save it from selfishness and disaster. Servants chosen, beloved, and approved of God, are the saviours of men.
II. The Servant’s Equipment
Whom the Lord sends He equips; “I will put My spirit upon Him.” The complete equipment of the servant is in the enduement of the Spirit. The explanation of Christ’s earthly life lies in three great passages: “He emptied Himself”; “He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for He giveth not the Spirit by measure”; “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” The fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in the self-emptied Christ, in the presence of the Divine Spirit given unto Him without measure of the Father. The subject of Christ’s relation to the Spirit during His earthly ministry is full of interest and profound practical teaching, but it is one which demands great delicacy and accuracy of thought and statement. All themes that lead us into the inter-relations of the Trinity are “hard to be uttered”; and yet without them it is impossible to know the great truths of the Christian faith, or to appreciate the greatness of our inheritance in Christ.
In all the work of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the Personal Agent of the Godhead. He is the sent of the Father and the Son. In Creation, Providence, and Redemption, He is the Executive Agent and Active Administrator. In the life of Jesus He fulfils the same mission. At every stage the Servant-Son works under the guidance and in the power of the Spirit. We rarely realise the dependence of the Christ in His earthly career upon the Spirit of God. The Prophet saw it clearly enough. Not only is the promise recorded, “I will put My Spirit upon Him,” but it is claimed by the Divine Servant of the prophecy, “The Lord God hath sent Me, and His Spirit.” His body was prepared of the Spirit; the opening faculties of the Child were under the control of the Spirit; for His ministry He was baptised with the Spirit; His teaching was by the inspiration of the Spirit; His miracles were wrought in the power of the Spirit; He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil; and in the power of the Spirit He returned from the wilderness to preach and heal. In all things He was directed, enlightened, empowered by the Spirit of God.
This is true not only of the activities of His ministry, but also of His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. It was “through the eternal Spirit” He “offered Himself without blemish unto God”; and it was by the same Spirit He was raised from the dead. From Bethlehem to Bethany, from the Incarnation to His Ascension, the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, preserving, directing, equipping Him in all the will of God. In this also, the servant of Christ is as his Lord. As the Father gave unto Him, so gives He unto His own. The resources of the Spirit are ours as unreservedly as they were His. The servants are prepared, equipped, instructed, empowered by the Spirit for all the will of God as truly as was the Christ Himself. He is to us as to Him the Active Agent of the Godhead, and holds for us all the resources of the Infinite. Who can measure man’s possibilities in the power of the Eternal Spirit?
III. The Servant’s Mission
The commission defines the work of the Servant. He is sent to declare judgement to the Gentiles, to send forth judgement unto victory, and to bring the Gentiles to hope in His Name. In a word, He came to establish judgement in the earth. What is judgement and whose judgement did He come to establish? It is not judgement in the sense of a judicial sentence, though His coming brought judgement to both the world and its Prince. His presence is always a judgement, dividing, separating, condemning, or approving. It is not of His office as Judge, however, the word is here spoken. He came to declare judgement in the sense of bringing the Divine standard for the measurement of all things upon earth; to so reveal the Father as to establish in the midst of men His standard of equity, righteousness, mercy, and truth; it means that He came to bring all things into line with the character of God, restore all things to the pattern of the Divine mind, and so make His judgement the standard of life and conduct that the world shall be in all things governed according to His will. He is sent to destroy the works of the Devil and to restore the world to the Divine order. That is the Mission of Jesus Christ; not to Judaise the world, but to save it; not to proclaim a creed, but to correct the life; not merely to reveal the truth, but to bring all things under its dominion.
Judgement suggests law, and the Mission of Jesus is a mission in the interest of law. He exemplified it in His life, satisfied it in His death, and is establishing it in the world by His Spirit. He saves that which was lost by bringing it back within the will of God. The call to repentance recalls man to the allegiance of an outraged law. He poured out His soul unto death that God might be just, and the Justifier of guilty men. Everything that is dark and devilish, ignorant and selfish, degrading and unjust, comes of disobedience, and Jesus seeks to restore men to the image and character of God. That is the work the Servant of the Lord has undertaken: to drive wrong out of men and out of the world, and to put right, men, nations, and the world—a task that demands the resources of God!
The purpose of Jehovah is world-wide. There is nothing parochial in the Almighty; “The earth is the Lord’s.” The exclusiveness of Israel was utterly at variance with the terms of the Covenant. The elect race was chosen for the blessing of all nations, and the Servant of Jehovah is ordained for the redemption of all peoples. The horizon of the Messiah was the boundary of the Universe. Beyond His Cross He saw all men drawn unto Him. The Apostles were commissioned to disciple all nations. The heathen are His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth His possession. In Him shall the Gentiles hope. He brings light to them that sit in darkness, liberty for all that are in bondage, and the ministry of compassion to them that are weak. The law of God which is the love of God, and the love of God which is the law of love, will send forth judgement unto victory, and make the days upon the earth as the days that are in Heaven.
IV. The Servant’s Temper and Method
The Temper and Method of the Servant are described as specifically as the purpose is defined. A representative must embody in himself the spirit of those by whom he is sent. The Lord who sends this Servant says, “He shall not strive, nor cry aloud, neither shall anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench.” Such is the character and method of the God-sent Deliverer. It seems woefully inadequate to the task undertaken. Is it in this temper and by such means the works of the Devil can be destroyed? Can such meekness overturn ancient systems of falsehood? Will the entrenched forces of organised vice and greed ever be dislodged by the gentleness that cares for bruised reeds and smoking flax? Such a mission seems to demand a trumpetblast, and a display of majesty and might that would strike terror among the nations, but He comes neither striving, nor crying, meek in spirit, and gentle in manner, apparently more concerned about the weakness and suffering of worthless people than founding an empire. John declared He would come with axe, and fan, and fire; but when He came, He carried neither axe, nor fan, nor fire in his hand. When the fiery Baptist saw Him spending His days over single reeds that were ready to perish, he doubted whether this could be the Christ who had come to establish a Kingdom. And yet, this gentle Servant-Son is, after all, but the reflection of His Lord. He claims no originality. He simply represents the Father; speaks His words, does His works, obeys His will. Patience and gentleness are not new features in the Divine method. The ways of Jehovah from the beginning have been marked by pity, forbearance, and gentleness. In this the Servant-Son is the image of the Father.
This description of Christ’s character is remarkable for its omissions. It is a striking list of negatives. “He shall not strive, nor cry, nor lift up His voice in the streets; He will not break the bruised reed, and the smoking wick, He will not quench.” Absent features are as impressive and instructive as the things that are present. The Spirit instructs by a process of exclusion. The absence of blemish implies a positive perfection. “In Him was no sin” expresses the flawless perfection of the Son of God, and these negatives lead us to the perfections of His ministry.
“He shall not strive.” He was often contending, but never contentious. He was not given to idle controversy. He waged war, but He was no wrangler. He never strove for personal triumph, nor expended His zeal over trifles and side issues. Men given to strife forget the broad bases of truth in their zeal for points. Shallowness is always eager to secure a “point.” They were great on points in Christ’s day; points of law, points of ritual, and points of conduct, but Christ never contended for trifles. He grasped essentials and laid bare eternal principles. The man with a great and solemn mission does not strive.
“He shall not cry.” He was no screamer. In all His ministry there was nothing loud. He might have startled, but He restrained His power. His works were of pure beneficence and never for advertisement. He who is sent of God can afford to be quiet; his silence is the reserve of strength, not the dumbness of fear.
“Neither shall anyone hear His voice in the streets.” Jesus was hard on street religion. He poured withering scorn on paraded piety, and ostentatious generosity. He bade His disciples pray in secret and give without ostentation. When He prayed, He ascended to lonely heights, or retired to solitary places. He sought no notoriety. He did not advertise Himself. He was meek and lowly in heart. He exalted others, but He humbled Himself.
This marked absence of self-assertion is accompanied by an equally marked absence of violence and impatience. “A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench.” He was patient and gentle with bruised, broken, and disappointing people. Every expositor has his own illustration for the bruised reed, but whatever the particular instance, it means that Jesus Christ gave special care to what others would have broken and thrown aside. He saw possibilities of good where others saw nothing but weakness, or worse. The reed may have broken in His hand and pierced Him, but He did not cast it away. There was no haste, no bitterness, no severity in Him toward those who had broken under the stress and strain of life’s burden and sin. He was full of pity for the bruised and despised.
Neither did He quench the smoking flax. Nothing is more offensive than a smoking wick. Instead of giving light, it blinds the eyes with smoke and stinks in the nostrils. Some Christians do not shine, they smoke. They add offensiveness to weakness; their virtue has smouldered into an offence. Nothing is easier than to snuff out such people by ridicule and contempt. But Jesus did not quench the smoking wick. Where there was smoke, there remained the possibility of a flame, and He sought by patient and tender sympathy to nurse it back into brightness and beauty. He saw possibilities in the weakest, and potential goodness in the worst. By His gentle patience He makes the bent to stand erect, and the foulest to be a clear and shining light in the world.
This is the method of Jehovah, and by it He will save the world. The saving energy of the Divine Presence is not in the whirlwind, neither is it in the earthquake or the fire, but in the still small voice. Men have always been impatient with Jehovah. His apparent leisure seems a crime in the presence of the world’s woe. They are for demonstration, revolution, and rapid movement. Their eager haste would save in battalions, sweep continents, overturn dynasties, and establish the kingdom of righteousness in a day. God is never in a hurry and to Him there are no crowds. Short cuts to dominion are of Satan, not of God. It is not by trumpets and banners, not by sensational demonstrations of power, but by holy living, patient forbearance, and loving ministry that the world will be saved. The work may seem slow, and the method inadequate, but the Servant of the Lord will not fail, nor be discouraged, till He have set judgement in the earth; and the isles shall wait for His law.